"Who's Malcolm?"
"Celia's Doberman." Figures. Ingrid plays with her lighter, flicking it on and off. "How about D) I'm dead?" I flinch. "Does that appeal to you at all?" "No. It doesn't."
"Really? I like that one best." Ingrid smiles. It's not a pretty smile. It's more like a grimace. "I like that one so much that it's given me an idea." She gets up and strides across the room and down the hall. I can hear her opening and shutting a drawer. When she reappears she has one hand behind her back. Ingrid stands in front of me, and says, "Surprise!" and she's pointing a gun at me. It's not a very big gun. It's slim and black and shiny. Ingrid holds it close to her waist, casually, as though she's at a cocktail party. I stare at the gun. Ingrid says, "I could shoot you."
"Yes. You could," I say.
"Then I could shoot myself," she says.
"That could also happen."
"But does it?"
"I don't know, Ingrid. You get to decide."
"Bullshit, Henry. Tell me," Ingrid commands.
"All right. No. It doesn't happen that way." I try to sound confident. Ingrid smirks. "But what if I want it to happen that way?"
"Ingrid, give me the gun."
"Come over here and get it."
"Are you going to shoot me?" Ingrid shakes her head, smiling. I climb off the couch, onto the floor, crawl toward Ingrid, trailing the afghan, slowed by the painkiller. She backs away, holding the gun trained on me. I stop.
"Come on, Henry. Nice doggie. Trusting doggie." Ingrid flicks off the safety catch and takes two steps toward me. I tense. She is aiming point blank at my head. But then Ingrid laughs, and places the muzzle of the gun against her temple. "How about this, Henry? Does it happen like this?"
"No." No! She frowns. "Are you sure, Henry?" Ingrid moves the gun to her chest. "Is this better? Head or heart, Henry?" Ingrid steps forward. I could touch her. I could grab her—Ingrid kicks me in the chest and I fall backward, I am sprawled on the floor looking up at her and Ingrid leans over and spits in my face.
"Did you love me?" Ingrid asks, looking down at me.
"Yes," I tell her.
"Liar," Ingrid says, and she pulls the trigger.
Monday, December 18, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43)
Clare: I wake up in the middle of the night and Henry is gone. I panic. I sit up in bed. The possibilities crowd into my mind. He could be run over by cars, stuck in abandoned buildings, out in the cold—I hear a sound, someone is crying. I think it is Alba, maybe Henry went to see what was wrong with Alba, so I get up and go into Albas room, but Alba is asleep, curled around Teddy, her blankets thrown off the bed. I follow the sound down the hall and there, sitting on the living room floor, there is Henry, with his head in his hands. I kneel beside him. "What's wrong?" I ask him. Henry raises his face and I can see the shine of tears on his cheeks in the streetlight that comes in the windows. "Ingrid's dead," Henry says. I put my arms around him. "Ingrid's been dead for a long time," I say softly. Henry shakes his head. "Years, minutes...same thing," he says. We sit on the floor in silence. Finally Henry says, "Do you think it's morning yet?"
"Sure." The sky is still dark. No birds are singing.
"Let's get up," he says. I bring the wheelchair, help him into it, and wheel him into the kitchen. I bring his bathrobe and Henry struggles into it. He sits at the kitchen table staring out the window into the snow-covered backyard. Somewhere in the distance a snowplow scrapes along a street. I turn on the light. I measure coffee into a filter, measure water into the coffee maker, turn it on. I get out cups. I open the fridge, but when I ask Henry what he wants to eat he just shakes his head. I sit down at the kitchen table opposite Henry and he looks at me. His eyes are red and his hair is sticking out in many directions. His hands are thin and his face is bleak.
"It was my fault," Henry says. "If I hadn't been there..."
"Could you have stopped her?" I ask.
"No. I tried."
"Well, then."
The coffee maker makes little exploding noises. Henry runs his hands over his face. He says, "I always wondered why she didn't leave a note." I am about to ask him what he means when I realize that Alba is standing in the kitchen doorway. She's wearing a pink nightgown and green mouse slippers. Alba squints and yawns in the harsh light of the kitchen.
"Hi, kiddo," Henry says. Alba comes over to him and drapes herself over the side of his wheelchair. "Mmmmorning," Alba says.
"It's not really morning," I tell her. "It's really still nighttime."